Jet passengers injured in mid-air near miss

By Colin Joyce in Tokyo

12:00AM GMT 01 Feb 2001

A NEAR collision between two Japan Airlines planes injured 42 passengers aboard a jumbo jet.

The Boeing 747 was less than half an hour into its flight from Tokyo to the southern Japanese island of Okinawa when the pilot took the aircraft into a steep descent. Japanese media reported that the pilot was responding to an alert from the plane's warning system that another plane was approaching.

The force is said to have thrown passengers from their seats. Forty two of the 427 people aboard were hurt, including a one-year-old girl. A stewardess who was serving drinks is reported to have struck her head violently on the ceiling of the plane.

Japanese television showed broken and dented ceiling panels. Passengers said that the drinks trolley flew into the air before hitting and injuring a passenger. The jet made an emergency landing at Haneda airport in Tokyo, where ambulances were waiting.

Passengers said there had been screaming and confusion aboard the plane. One woman said: "I thought we would crash." Authorities are investigating why the two aircraft came so close to colliding. There were no reported injuries aboard the second jet, a Japan Airlines flight from Pusan, South Korea, to Tokyo.

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